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Frostblade Irelia feels like Dragonslayer Pantheon all over again

RedPannda·3/20/2018, 11:17:55 PM·192 votes·18,193 views

I really didn't want to have to say this, Frostblade Irelia was one of the first skins I ever bought and it has always been one of my favorites. I fell out of love with how the champ played a long time ago but I had been more hopeful for this rework than I have for anything in league for a long time. And first I have to say that you knocked it out of the park with the rework in my eyes. Her new animations and abilities look smooth af and are incredibly aesthetic.

Her basic skin looks better than a lot of the purchasable custom skins in my eyes. And for the most part her extra skins carry that same level of quality, the Aviator one is one I never had any interest in before but it will be the first thing I purchase just for that splash art alone. All of the other skins feel as good or better except one...

When I got up this morning I couldn't have been more hyped to see that the skins were out and I couldn't have been more disappointed when I clicked the image. Than I watched her ingame preview and my heart dropped to the floor. I can say now that without significant changes such as the Pantheon Dragonslayer skin got I will not be using this skin and that really breaks my heart.

It feels like the least amount of work went into it compared to any of the other skins when it is an undebatable fact that it is one of the most popular of her skins. Her base skin in my eyes blows it away and I am honestly very surprised that it made it out like this without someone at Riot questioning it.

First I want to examine the original splash art and what made it so good.

https://i.imgur.com/h2rn03s.jpg[/img]

I have marked all the important details in red.

  1. Her Face: I am not a lore hound but Irelia has always come off as a stern, not highly emotional, serious woman who has a job to do and is focused on it and if you get in her way she will slice you to ribbons. Her eyes are focused directly at you, her brow is furrowed and her mouth has a slight upturn like she is seeing something she doesn't like and she is ready to take care of it.

  2. Her Tech: Again I don't know the lore but she appears to be wearing some sort of hextech modifications on her head and shoulders. They give off a nice blue glow with a slightly different hue than her suit and hair that contrasts nicely. It gives her a bit of mystery, are her weapons completely controlled by the hextech equipment or is she powering them as well? It also gives her another color besides blue to create a nice solid two color scheme that doesn't clash.

  3. The Butt: You knew this was coming, like it or not, intentional or not it became the defining identity of the skin. From her being referred to as Frostbutt, to her skin in splash and ingame making it a defining feature. Not her only feature but enough that it deserves at least some mention.

The angle of the splash art from an almost top down perspective gives you a very good view of the definition of her body. There is just a slight but clearly defined for the lack of a better word "shelf". Her left leg is in a just slightly bent forward angle with her knee facing down and back accentuating it and I also think the thigh armor helps add some definition to her body and give you some differing visual angles. It is a perfect work of art and giving a different context a marble sculpture of her would fit right in a museum.

Now I want to contrast these elements with the new splash art and a small mention of the ingame visuals as well. I do think the ingame visuals are better than the splash art with one or two glaring issues.

https://i.imgur.com/3K11zGy.jpg[/img]

  1. Her Face: This mostly applies to the splash art but if you placed these two faces side by side and asked me if they were the same person I would have a very hard time answering that question. Gone is the stern look, without zooming in you cannot even tell that she is looking at the camera. It looks like she is just vaguely staring off into the distance.

There is no concern or any emotion at all, it is a basic almost slack jawed expression of complete disinterest. Her nose stole all the protrusion from the jaw and it honestly feels like they completely threw out the idea of what she was and just created a new character that just so happens to have the same name and same general features.

  1. Her Body: This is the worst part of all the details. There are so many things wrong with this one splash and in game. First there are too many clashing colors, There are multiple shades of purple and pink everywhere, there is silver and giant splashes of white. While the blue highlights of her old skin have almost completely disappeared.

The only thing you could even maybe consider blue is the legs and arms of her jumpsuit and stomach area. Her blades appear almost completely purple as well. To be fair her in game model the blades appear much more frost like. Even her eyes almost appear to have a reddish purple tinge to them. Gone are the golden eyes of her other skin.

I feel that there are way too many contrasting colors. Her old skin used only two major colors to simplify and highlight her important features. This new color scheme almost feels like a riot on the eyes and if you didn't tell me the theme of this skin I would guess she was called Crystal Lotus or something along those lines.

I know Ice and Crystal share a lot of common features but they are not the same thing and this skin swings way too much to the side of appearing to utilize the theme of solid rocks instead of freezing ice. There is nothing cold or intimidating about her.

Secondly and the most damning issue in my eyes is all the fur. It is completely out of place and feels like it was added in because they remembered at the last minute that this was supposed to be a icy cold skin and they needed something to let us know that. Since the rest of her skin has basically done away with the frosty blue theme.

Why does she have a ring of fur around her waist? This serves no practical application and is simply distracting. Than we come to the ultimate crime, That renaissance style neck brace that I guess is supposed to be part of a non existent winter coat.

This image was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. https://i.imgur.com/KthznkI.jpg[/img] In the splash art it is only slightly off putting but in the game it is comically large. I mean just look at this thing https://i.imgur.com/W5jpe8t.jpg[/img].

Her old skin had no need for such embellishments and this feels like they were trying to make up for the lack in character with the rest of her skin to give her a "winter" appearance. Also it looks much too much like they borrowed heavily from the Woad Quinn skin.

  1. The Butt: Finally we come the end of my much too long rant. This is actually the smallest area of complaint. There is nothing "bad" about this feature. But there is also very little that makes it stand out.

Gone are the little armor pieces that gave it definition, instead we have an almost perfectly smooth jumpsuit from the waste down. This time her left leg is angled almost completely forward which pulls everything inwards and smooths the curves out. That combined with the bottom up angle of the splash art removes any hint of the previously mentioned "shelf". It is just a firm buttox encased in skintight clothing. It has very little definition and simply doesn't have any wow factor in my eyes.

Riot I know this far into the design process there is almost no chance of any changes. I am not trying to start a protest or try to get the skin radically changed. I know it is much too late for that. The most I could hope for is that maybe I can start a conversation about the ideas behind radical artistic changes to beloved characters and possibly in the future you could consider bringing rough draft artistic designs to the community to get their opinion before you make a final decision.

You don't have to go along with the crowd all the time, but many of us care deeply about the characters you have created and it feels like a small betrayal when the spirit of what they were morphs into something we no longer recognize.

124 Comments

LankPants3/21/2018, 12:21:47 AM78 votes

I hate how huge of a downgrade this skin is compared to the old one. Without sugar coating it, it looks bad. If Riot actually wants to be a 'players first' company this skin needs to go back to the drawing board because the changes to it are frankly a huge mistake.

MetaVolca3/20/2018, 11:21:00 PM46 votes

Preach dude, all of Irelia’s skins look so lazy. And this isn’t really Frostblade anymore, it’s more Winter Wonder.

Kürama3/21/2018, 12:05:22 AM29 votes

Agreed with basically everything you stated. She's one of my mains as well, love the current Frostbutt, the new one is bleh.

Lady Luminous3/20/2018, 11:27:02 PM21 votes

She doesn't have a special recall while Infiltrator does and it's the same price. Am I the only one who noticed this and is annoyed by it?

TempName748143/20/2018, 11:21:35 PM19 votes

they nerfed her butt :(

Risen293/21/2018, 2:05:04 AM17 votes

You are correct, sir. It is an absolutely atrocious skin, and an insult to those who paid money for it.

The soft lines and vibrant blue color of the skin was what attracted me to it in the first place. Gold is always a beautiful pairing with that kind of blue. Blue is my favorite color. Sometimes I can't help but go for the blue skins just because they are a nice clean look with a great blue hue, like the championship skins. I also like tech skins, so the glow and techy elements made it even better.

They took everything I loved about the skin and turned it upside down. Now it's purple hues with grey white and dull shades of blue that aren't appealing.

Instead of the soft lined techy blue glow, now we have a rough spiky ice queen. She looks like woad warrior Quinn with ice where feathers/fur would be. That hair, oh that terrible ice spike helmet on her head. That yoke of spiky fluff upon her shoulders, what a terrible burden of ugliness she must bear.

HalcyonDweller3/20/2018, 11:27:39 PM14 votes

Well worded and solid analysis, I had no opinion about the skin before (except that the pink hair looked out of place) but you have completely converted me over to your side about this skin now. +1

RedPannda3/22/2018, 2:13:14 AM9 votes

The war is over, we lost, go home. Go to reddit if you want someone to listen to you, that is if they don't delete your content. I'm done, never again will I put in this much effort. You have broken my heart and my spirit riot.

It isn't about the skin anymore for me, even if it turns out perfect which it won't because they have already said that they have no interest in the character she was before. For me this is about pouring my heart into this for the last two days to only be told to go to reddit to hear our thoughts on it. The place that just shadow deleted my thread for no reason without even telling me or giving me an outlet to ask them why. That is where we are supposed to go for dialog with riot.

I'm done.

UrClades3/21/2018, 1:45:44 AM9 votes

Legit just remove the fur and it goes from a 3/10 to at least a 6/10. It's the biggest issue by far

Quantitative3/21/2018, 2:33:21 AM8 votes

Completely agreed.

I think during the redesign process, they lost the elements that made Frostblade unique. The old skin had a sense of ice and technology. Nothing festive. The fur, and the VFX of the in-game model make it much more Christmas friendly.

I would be happy if they included a more frosty look on the particles, and lost the fur. (and a redo on the splash art)

Masked Lunatic3/21/2018, 3:50:45 AM8 votes

The things that make me dislike this change so much is:

  1. The colours are horribly muted and wishy-washy in comparison. The old skin had strong definition due to the contrast between the dark blue of the bodysuit and the colour of her armour. The new one just feels like a blob of colour.

  2. The fur is far too much and is not balanced (both colour and size-wise) and pretty much becomes the entirety of the skin as of the moment.

  3. The blades just feel like they had no effort put into their design at all. By this I mean if you look at all the other skins + the base, the blades are made to fit the thematic AND look sharp. Frostblade Irelia's blades look more like toothpicks / stabby things instead of blades meant to cut (it's nothing too bad but it's something that irks me the more I look at it).

  4. The skin easily clashes with the style from other skin lines (and does it worse) like winter wonder karma and woad quinn (as pointed out by OP).

Rune Ocarina3/21/2018, 3:33:43 PM8 votes

I feel so betrayed by Riot right now. I have Frostbutt Irelia. It's always been my favorite skin in her line, and it was the first one I checked when the updates came around. I think the OP is right, it fucking sucks to admit, but the damage is already done and Riot will probably never go back on this skin to change it.

But if you do Riot...if you do go back and start fixing the skin - even maybe going as far as disabling Frostbutt until a more true version to the original is created: model and splashart alike. I would have the biggest fucking respect for you guys. You guys really do need to be a lot more open about these VGUs and not show everything weeks before launch. Because this will always be remembered as one of the biggest betrayals ever in League.

I really hate to ask for it, but if the skin isn't changed, may I and all the other people who want to get a refund? I just want my money back because I don't want to support such a practice where I had something I loved and have it taken from me after paying for it and then changed to something I now hate.

This is just...so disappointing...I really had a lot of faith after one of the Rioters said you all called her Frostbutt internally as well. I thought there was a connection there. Seems I misplaced that trust.

devdev4633/21/2018, 1:50:38 AM7 votes

Agree about the color scheme in particular, as someone who really liked the old one's color scheme I am a tad dissapointed.

Also I really like how the old skins blades look, while in this one they seem rather bland, both in the splash art and in game.

Risen293/21/2018, 4:11:20 AM6 votes

A chroma wouldn't even save this skin because the model and splash are so bad.

Μegumin3/21/2018, 2:28:48 PM6 votes

The new look is absolutely disgusting compared to the old one, it doesn't look the same at all*[sg-ahri-1]*

Mystery Ghost3/21/2018, 4:39:05 AM5 votes

Yea the new Frostblade Irelia has completely lost all the majic that the skin had, it's one of the biggest update dissapointments ever and both sides agree this time

ZinTheSlayR3/21/2018, 4:03:57 AM5 votes

Yea I agree with you here. I liked how the original was basically a cold weather bodysuit which leaves you guessing what its made out of and what kind of technology it runs on. While the new one just has fur for the sake of having fur, there are so many cold themed skins which add rings of fur to let you know that it is a cold themed skin. It's really out of place on this skin and if they really wanted to add it they could have at least made it smaller. When I look at it I see way too much purple on the skin. Honestly I'm not sure whose decision it was to change the assets and color palette, but it was a horrid one.

Overall the art is decent in its own right. The problem is it has a precedent set for it in the original version and it really fails to nail a lot of the themes that the original had.

IceMyth3/22/2018, 1:44:17 AM5 votes

Frostblade is the only skin I liked and bought for her. This new design looks so bad and some of the cheap skins for her looks away better than Frostblade that suppose the most expensive one. I hope they fix this design otherwise I will end playing her without using any skin!

Galacius3/21/2018, 9:47:46 PM5 votes

-#Savefrostbutt-

Man I love Irelia before rework (mostly because of Nightblade and Frostbutt), but this is really depressing. The gameplay trailer looks good but her skins don't. I wondered what happened to Irelia when I first saw her and hell I didn't even recognize her. Here's hoping something gets done.

Sukishoo3/21/2018, 1:29:37 AM5 votes

Being the only skin of hers I don't own, I dunno. I personally like the updated look, especially in the splash.

Risen293/22/2018, 2:58:09 AM4 votes

Changing the color and improving the new frostblade skin doesn't change the fact that thematically and aesthetically it is 180 degrees removed from what was paid for. You should never do that. If you want to double down on an ice theme then go make a new skin.

All you're showing by turning frostblade into a spikey ice version of Woad Scout Quinn is that you never understood what made people like frostblade in the first place, and didn't care to consider it.

Purejoyce3/21/2018, 3:56:00 AM4 votes

I agree with OP, but also make her more BLUE than purple. That silly, ugly purple color was the reason I didn't get winter karma skin. Now you force that purple crap on us on top of downgrading the iconic (kek) Frostbutt to... this? AND WTF IS THAT FUR AROUND HER NECK? Kindly F*ck off, that's not even close to the skin I bought.

VelvetCrotch3/21/2018, 8:24:28 PM4 votes

AH! now i know what the new one reminds me of: Winterwonder Karma or how its called.

I (and i do think many others too) DONT WANT (and didnt payed for) Winterwonder Irelia, but rather FROSTBLADE

DemonK1ng3/21/2018, 6:44:26 PM2 votes

Has Riot said anything yet in regards to the uproar?